Glasgow tackles food waste on home turf

Gillian Loney

Glasgow households will soon be able to recycle food waste easier as the city council tackles its landfill problem with kitchen waste caddies.

GCC will roll out caddies to ground level homes — some 12,000 each week — allowing residents to deposit food waste from the kitchen to brown bins, collected fortnightly.

The service will be extended to 113,500 kerbside properties across Glasgow, with the southside following on from the north east of the city by April.

Food waste collections for tenements and flats will also follow later this year, as well as additional blue bins.

Bailie Elaine McDougall, GCC’s executive member for transport, environment and sustainability, said: “We want to create a cleaner and greener Glasgow for everyone.

“Collecting food waste from a mix of property types across the city is a mammoth operation and will be done in two phases starting with kerbside properties, followed by multi-storey flats and tenements from April.

“We hope to have every household in Glasgow recycling their food waste by March 2017.”

The move is part of a £3.2 million grant from the Scottish Government through Zero Waste Scotland, with the aim of improving the country’s recycling rates.

Some 165,000 tonnes are sent from Glasgow to landfill at the moment, with 30 per cent made up of food waste — enough to fill Tollcross swimming pool almost 70 times over.